Smart baby monitors, security cameras and thermostats can be hacked in just MINUTES

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Gadgets were accessed by researchers who tracked down passwords online

Consumers and businesses rarely change their default password, experts said

Similar products under different brands share the same default access codes

'Truly frightening' how easily criminals can take control of devices in the home

...Experts at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, examined off-the-shelf internet of things (IoT) devices and quickly uncovered a number of serious security issues.

The IoT is a broad category that refers to devices or sensors that connect, communicate or transmit information over the web.

Sixteen popular brands of IoT connected hardware devices were tested in total.

'Using these devices in our lab, we were able to play loud music through a baby monitor, turn off a thermostat and turn on a camera remotely, much to the concern of our researchers who themselves use these products,' study lead Dr Yossi Oren said.

...The team discovered that similar products under different brands often share the same common default passwords.

Consumers and businesses rarely change these passwords when purchased and they could be infected with malicious code for years without them realising.

...The team was also able to logon to entire Wi-fi networks simply by retrieving the password stored in a device to gain network access.

'It only took 30 minutes to find passwords for most of the devices and some of them were found only through a Google search of the brand,' study co-author Omer Shwartz said.

Manufacturers of so-called IoT products - which include physical devices, vehicles, home appliances and other items that connect and exchange data - rarely protect them from simple cyber attacks, researchers said.

Mr Shwartz added: 'Once hackers can access an IoT device, like a camera, they can create an entire network of these camera models controlled remotely.'

1. Googling default passwords is not hacking.
2. Not changing default logins and passwords is ignorant.

Sent from my 5046G using Tapatalk

Being an old hacker myself, Googling default logins is not hacking, but using them is. You would be surprised how many systems have a admin login of 'admin' also have the password of 'admin'. Lots of routers set up by novices in their homes can be easily hacked using default passwords.